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“Time to step up to the plate for Irish Dairy farmers” - Carthy

Sinn
Féin MEP for the Midlands North West and member of the European Parliament’s Agriculture
and Rural Development Committee, Matt Carthy, has called on Minister Simon Coveney to ensure
that greater supports for Irish Dairy Farmers are put in place. Carthy made his call as Farmers protest in
Dublin today ahead of a demonstration in Brussels next week. Carthy welcomed the Ministers recent support
for an increase in the intervention price explaining that Sinn Féin had been
demanding such well in advance of the abolition of quotas in April.

Carthy said:

“Since my appointment to the Agriculture
& Rural Development committee I had demanded increased safety nets for
Dairy farmers especially in the run-up to the abolition of quotas. These calls fell on deaf ears as Minister
Coveney and others encouraged farmers to invest huge sums of money in the
promise of profit and market expansion.
This was despite the fact that every independent observer of Dairy
markets warned of drastic price fluctuations.

“While it is now welcome that Minister
Coveney and his European counterparts acknowledge the difficulties facing
dairy farmers as a result, in part, of the abolition of milk quotas, more needs
to be done practically to provide real supports to farmers as they struggle to
adjust.

“Teagasc reports
outline that the cost of production of a litre of milk is 25c per litre and
therefore the current intervention price of 21c per is insufficient.

“Minister Coveney has
belatedly called for an increase in intervention price to 25c per litre, a
measure I proposed in the EP Agriculture Committee’s Milk Package Report in
March but which was rejected by MEP’s including from Fine Gael’s EPP group.

“From the responses
to written questions I put to Commissioner Hogan, it is quite clear that the Commission
is not willing to intervene with regard to prices and ignoring the impact that
price volatility has on producers, many of whom are under severe pressure to
remain in the sector.

“Ministers, alongside
the Commission, now need to step up to the plate, after years of encouraging
farmers into the sector and massive expansion taken at great personal expense
farmers must be given real supports”.

Carthy also called on
Commissioner Hogan to respond positively to the suggested increase in
intervention price at next Monday’s emergency meeting of Agriculture ministers
in Brussels.

“Put plainly, Commissioner
Hogan needs to put the survival of farmers ahead of the short term interests of
markets and introduce an increase in intervention prices. Anything else at this
stage would be irresponsible and would leave many farmers questioning their
future in the sector.”